CIES e-WORKING PAPER N° 12/2006 BrazilianMigration to Portugal: Social etworks andEthnic Solidarity BEATRIZ PADILLA CIES e-Working Papers (ISSN 1647-0893) Av. das Forças Armadas, Edifício ISCTE, 1649-026 LISBOA, PORTUGAL, [email protected] Beatriz Padilla holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Center for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES-ISCTE), Lisbon. Her research interests are on trans-Atlantic migrations, gender studies, social movements and research methods. Email: [email protected] Abstract This paper describes the flux of Brazilian newcomers to Portugal. It focuses on the type of interactions and social networks they make use of, in both the country of origin and destination, in order to find housing and work and build support. It also looks at gender differences in the use of networks, and explores the issue of ethnic solidarity in social relations among Brazilians migrants. This work is based on more than 40 in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Lisbon and Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil). Keywords : migration, social networks, ethnic solidarity, reciprocity, Brazilians, Portugal Resumo O artigo descreve a nova vaga de imigrantes brasileiros em Portugal. Centra-se no tipo de interacções e redes sociais utilizadas pelos brasileiros tanto no país de origem como no destino, para encontrar moradia e emprego e na construção dum sistema de apoio. Considera também as diferenças de género na utilização das redes e explora a solidariedade étnica nas relações entre brasileiros migrantes. O trabalho baseia-se em mais de 40 entrevistas em profundidade e no trabalho etnográfico desenvolvido em Lisboa e no Estado de Mato Grosso do Sul, no Brasil. Palavras-chave : migrações, redes sociais, solidariedade étnica, reciprocidade, brasileiros, Portugal 2 Introduction: Brazilianization of immigration in Portugal 1 For a long time migrants of all types, economic and refugees, have gone from the countries of Latin America to the United States. More recently, waves of migration from Latin American countries have changed gear to Europe, not replacing but increasing the fluxes South-North. One common element, although not the only one, is that these fluxes somehow are tied to old colonial relationships. In this sense, as people from Spanish speaking countries have immigrated to Spain, Portuguese speaking people have immigrated to Portugal. This is the context where we situate Brazilian immigrants to Portugal (Padilla 2005a). Today, Brazilians make the largest immigrant group in Portugal, with over 100,000 people. Their legal status varies according to several and complex elements such as date of arrival and effective legalization processes available to them (1992, 1996, 2001, 2003), whether they are married to a national or they have Portuguese (or other European) ancestors, what their level of education and work experience is, etc. Therefore, a large number of them are legal residents, others have authorization to stay (autorizações de permanência ), others, fewer, were able to legalized through the 2003 exceptional process and have working permits, and many others are still undocumented. Official numbers ( Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras ) indicated that in 2005 there were 31.353 Brazilians living as legal residents, and other 39.961 had authorizations to stay, making a total of 71.314 people. About 15.000 were able to legalize thanks to the bi-national accord of 2003 (which is still open), thus there are about 86.000 Brazilians living in Portugal who have solved their legal status. On the other hand, the number of undocumented is uncertain, but we can assume that they are about 15.000 more of those pre-registered for legalization, and many others who have arrived after July 2003 thinking that legalization was still possible. Recent studies calculate that the number of undocumented Brazilians could be up to 150.000 (Bendixen & Associates 2006). The profiles of the Brazilian waves of immigrants have changed over time. Even if throughout history Brazil and Portugal had a long record of exchange that started back in the 1500s with the “discovery” of Brazil, up to the 1950s, Brazil was the main destination for Portuguese emigration (Padilla 2004a). Later on, the fluxes shifted direction. Brazilians came to Portugal as political refugees during the dictatorships and as a counter-current of former Portuguese emigration. In addition, Brazilian professionals (publicists, computer and software experts, dentists, among others) were attracted to Portugal due to its entrance to the European Economic Community (Peixoto 2002) when the demand for a qualified labor force opened new opportunities. However, as Feldman-Bianco (2001) suggests, it was not until Brazilians from the working classes started to emigrate, that it was defined as a problem. Hence, what happened then was the proletarization of the Brazilian migration fluxes (Padilla 2004b, 2005a), which meant a shift. While during the 1980s Brazilians belonged to the professional middle classes, in the 1990s most immigrants came from the lower middle class and the working class families. However, even if prolaterization has happened, in comparison with other immigrant groups, Brazilians still occupied an intermediate position when considering their main occupations and educational attainments. Most of them have formal education (average of high school diploma) and some specialization (Padilla 2004b). This intermediate position is reflected both in the 1 A previous version of this paper was delivered at the 2006 Meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, San Juan, Puerto Rico , March 15-18, 2006. The author wishes to express her gratitude to the Luso-Brazilian Foundation, FLAD and FCT for their financial support. 3 labor market in which Brazilians occupy some important niches such as jobs in catering and restaurant services, hotel, and other services), and in terms of images and how Portuguese society sees different immigrant groups (Brazilians are better off than Africans coming from the former colonies). Other studies have indicated (Immigration Observatory 2003) that when considering three main immigrant groups (those of African descent, Brazilians and Eastern Europeans), Brazilians occupied a middle position. Later, we will refer in more details to the Portuguese stratified labor market. In trying to identify sets of reasons that have contributed to the increase of Brazilian immigration to Portugal, we can find several. The traditional pull and push factors, already mentioned for many scholars, are relevant. There are obvious pushing elements in Brazil (poverty, economic instability, unemployment, low salaries, and lack of opportunities among others). On the pulling factors side, and considering the latest wave of the mid and late 1990s, it may be said that the Portuguese economy was booming, with a growing demand of labor for construction (a new bridge, highways, stadiums for the Euro 2004, services at restaurants and hotels, among others). In addition to the traditional pull-push factors, it is possible to identify other elements that are consequences of globalization, including credit facilities to travel, cheaper air fares, fast circulation of information about not only tourism but also about employment opportunities in other countries, specially in those countries where there were already immigrants from the country of origin. This last element, emphasize the importance of social networks for migration, which is the main aspect of this paper. Using a different name, Massey (1990) has named this “circular and cumulative causation” of migration. Immigrants’ Social etworks Many scholars have discussed the important role that social networks play in the lives of immigrants (Margolis 1995, Menjivar 1997, Wilson 1998, Hagan 1998, Peixoto 2002, Harwick 2003, Padilla 2004b & 2005b), even if some have also criticized their real outreach (Sanders and Nee 1987). Within the migration literature, social networks refer primarily to personal relationships based on family, kin, friendship and community (Hagan 1998 citing Boyd 1989:639). Most scholars include family and friends as main axis of the networks, however Menjivar (1997) in a comparative article focuses only on kinship networks, analyzing differences between the behaviors of kin members among different immigrant groups. It is important to highlight that research has shown that social networks reduce the short term costs of settlement while shaping other variables related to the migration process: decision to migrate, direction of the flows, transnational links, settlement patterns and incorporation (Hagan 1998). As Peixoto (2002) also claims, informal social networks have an important effect on migration as they help to spread information and instill a culture of mobility that penetrates individual decisions. Hardwick (2003) gives social networks a different name, “networks of ethnicity” and suggests that they can be endogenous or internal when connections are specific to one or more distinctive groups, and exogenous or external when they provide linkages to the outside world. In addition, many researchers have found significant gender difference on how networks function and work. In trying to explain networks functioning, Curran and Saguy (2001) apply and link three key concepts: networks of obligation, relative deprivation and trust. While “networks of obligation link individuals (both migrating and non-migrating),